Exotic Cat Prowled British Countryside a Century Ago

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An exotic cat that prowled the British countryside a century ago
was a non-native lynx from Canada, a new study finds.

The feline's skeleton and mounted skin have been tucked away for
years in the underground storeroom of the Bristol Museum in
England. Scientists analyzed the specimen and found it to be
a Canada
lynx (Lynx canadensis), a carnivorous animal about
twice the size of a domestic cat.

"It's the earliest physical evidence we have for an escaped
exotic cat in the U.K.," said biologist Ross Barnett of Durham
University in England, lead author of the study published today
(April 24) in the journal Historical Biology.

A popular theory suggested wild cats appeared in the British
countryside after the establishment of the Dangerous Wild Animals
Act of 1976, which forbade the ownership of potentially dangerous
wild animals as pets. But the museum specimen lived well before
then, records show. It was shot in the Devon countryside in the
early 1900s after it killed two dogs. Its remains were donated to
the Bristol Museum, which mislabeled the animal in 1903 as a
Eurasian lynx, a close relative of the Canadian lynx.

In the study, researchers carefully examined the cat specimen to
look for signatures of known feline species. A first look
suggested the animal was one of four modern lynx species:
bobcat ; Iberian/Spanish/Pardel lynx; Canada lynx; or
Eurasion/Northern lynx. The
Iberian lynx and Eurasion lynx were ruled out because of the
specimen's tawny color and abundance of dark spots. The animal's
short legs, silvery-brown pelt and black markings under its face
matched the Canada lynx. Its dark under-eye markings and long
tail also resembled a bobcat, though it lacked the bobcat's dark
tail markings and darker hind feet. The animal's size — about 1.3
feet high (39 centimeters) and 2.4 feet long (74 cm) — fit both
the Canada lynx and bobcat.

To pin down the true species, the team measured the cat's
physical features and compared them with those of other feline
species. The analysis showed with 99.9 percent probability that
the specimen was a Canadian lynx.

Next, the team analyzed the ratio of different forms of the
element strontium in the cat's bones, a marker of the water it
drank and the geology of its habitat. The strontium ratio matched
the composition of rocks in both Western Canada and Newton Abbot,
the part of England where the cat was shot. Eastern Canada was
ruled out as a possible origin, because the strontium content in
the bone differed from the composition of rocks there.

The researchers tried to obtain
DNA samples from the specimen's fur, but the attempts failed.
This may be because many of the early techniques for preserving
stuffed animals were harsh, Barnett told LiveScience.

"Lynxes haven't been in the U.K. since about the ninth century,"
Barnett said. But now, there's been at least one.